Wolves of the Calla - Stephen King [114]
Roland picked a pokeberry almost as big as the tip of his own finger and popped it into Eddie’s mouth. “Does that taste like wax, Eddie?”
Eddie’s eyes, cautious to begin with, suddenly widened. He swallowed, grinned, and reached for more. “Like cranberries, only sweeter. I wonder if Suze knows how to make muffins? Even if she doesn’t, I bet Callahan’s housekeeper—”
“Listen to me, Eddie. Listen closely and keep a rein on your emotions. For your father’s sake.”
Eddie had been reaching for a bush that was particularly heavy with pokeberries. Now he stopped and simply looked at Roland, his face expressionless. In this early light, Roland could see how much older Eddie looked. How much he had grown up was really extraordinary.
“What is it?”
Roland, who had held this secret in his own counsel until it seemed more complex than it really was, was surprised at how quickly and simply it was told. And Eddie, he saw, wasn’t completely surprised.
“How long have you known?”
Roland listened for accusation in this question and heard none. “For certain? Since I first saw her slip into the woods. Saw her eating…” Roland paused. “…what she was eating. Heard her speaking with people who weren’t there. I’ve suspected much longer. Since Lud.”
“And didn’t tell me.”
“No.” Now the recriminations would come, and a generous helping of Eddie’s sarcasm. Except they didn’t.
“You want to know if I’m pissed, don’t you? If I’m going to make this a problem.”
“Are you?”
“No. I’m not angry, Roland. Exasperated, maybe, and I’m scared to fuckin death for Suze, but why would I be angry with you? Aren’t you the dinh?” It was Eddie’s turn to pause. When he spoke again, he was more specific. It wasn’t easy for him, but he got it out. “Aren’t you my dinh?”
“Yes,” Roland said. He reached out and touched Eddie’s arm. He was astounded by his desire—almost his need—to explain. He resisted it. If Eddie could call him not just dinh but his dinh, he ought to behave as dinh. What he said was, “You don’t seem exactly stunned by my news.”
“Oh, I’m surprised,” Eddie said. “Maybe not stunned, but…well…” He picked berries and dropped them into Roland’s hat. “I saw some things, okay? Sometimes she’s too pale. Sometimes she winces and grabs at herself, but if you ask her, she says it’s just gas. And her boobs are bigger. I’m sure of it. But Roland, she’s still having her period! A month or so ago I saw her burying the rags, and they were bloody. Soaked. How can that be? If she caught pregnant when we pulled Jake through—while she was keeping the demon of the circle occupied—that’s got to be four months at least, and probably five. Even allowing for the way time slips around now, it’s gotta be.”
Roland nodded. “I know she’s been having her monthlies. And that’s proof conclusive it isn’t your baby. The thing she’s carrying scorns her woman’s blood.” Roland thought of her squeezing the frog in her fist, popping it. Drinking its black bile. Licking it from her fingers like syrup.
“Would it…” Eddie made as if to eat one of the pokeberries, decided against it, and tossed it into Roland’s hat instead. Roland thought it would be a while before Eddie felt the stirrings of true appetite again. “Roland, would it even look like a human baby?”
“Almost surely not.”
“What, then?”
And before he could stay them, the words were out. “Better not to name the devil.”
Eddie winced. What little color remained in his face now left it.
“Eddie? Are you all right?”
“No,” Eddie said. “I am most certainly not all right. But I’m not gonna faint like a girl at an Andy Gibb concert, either. What are we going to do?”
“For the time being, nothing. We have too many other things to do.”
“Don’t we just,” Eddie said. “Over here, the Wolves come in twenty-four days, if I’ve got it figured right. Over there in New York, who knows what day it is? The sixth of June? The tenth? Closer to July fifteenth than it was yesterday, that’s for sure. But Roland—if what she’s got inside her isn’t human, we can’t be sure her pregnancy will go